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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27350029">lullaby</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/treescape/pseuds/treescape'>treescape</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Getting Together, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, stories</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:41:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,243</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27350029</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/treescape/pseuds/treescape</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Into the emptiness, Obi-Wan poured words and memories, and if they were the building blocks of his own soul, they were a part of Anakin, as well.</p><p>
  <i>Or, Anakin can't feel the Force; Obi-Wan guides him through.</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>226</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>lullaby</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This for <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToolMusicLover/pseuds/ToolMusicLover">ToolMusicLover</a>, who prompted: "I'd love to see some Obikin, specifically Obi-Wan looking after Anakin after a particularly difficult mission. Perhaps Anakin is struggling to get a grip on the Force, has a small injury or isn't handling the deaths of his men well... I don't mind, just wanna see Anakin getting some tender loving care." Thank you so much for the beautiful prompt! &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At precisely 09:12:36 standard hours, the Force disappeared. One instant, Anakin could sense dozens of people around him, a constant chord of energy in his mind and in his blood. The next, he stumbled on nothing, an emptiness so profound it was something more than darkness.</p><p>Somewhere, distantly, because Obi-Wan had trained him to always be aware of his surroundings, Anakin fought past the silent weight in his head, pain flashing behind his eyes. Out of the corner of his blurred vision, he saw Rex drag Echo out of blaster range, Fives and Jesse ducking down for whatever cover they could find. Ahsoka spun above them, a helix of green. Obi-Wan—</p><p>Anakin wasn’t sure what Obi-Wan was doing, because Obi-Wan was out of sight and Anakin couldn’t <i>feel</i> him.</p><p>Out of nowhere, there was stone beneath Anakin’s hands and knees, abrasive and sharp. There were lights in the sky, orange and amber and red. There was <i>nothing<i>.</i></i></p><p>
  <i>
    <i>And then there was more nothing.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i></i>
  </i>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>---</p>
</div>When he woke, everything felt muddled, in his head and—everywhere. His thoughts seemed to spin in slow fragments, like desert sage in a sandstorm, and his limbs couldn’t quite decide what they were made of. They felt heavy as iron and light as air; at any moment, he could sink into the depths of the Dune Sea or float away like powdered dust. Maybe he’d do both at once. His skin...something was wrong with his skin, but he wasn’t sure what. He thought maybe it was numb. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it, not in the slightest. He wondered where Obi-Wan was, because something told him that Obi-Wan wouldn’t like it either.<p>Obi-Wan would make it stop.</p><p>He opened his eyes and immediately wanted to close them again, even if it wouldn’t change the reality of where he was. At least then he wouldn’t have to see it, though he’d still have to smell the too-clean scent of the air. He hadn’t been in the Halls of Healing since the aftermath of Geonosis, at least not as a patient. Being here now made his arm ache where metal met skin, the pain faint and distant but <i>there</i>.</p><p>At least the pain cut through the numbness, a little. That was something. He should tell Obi-Wan, but first he had to figure out where Obi-Wan was. Just the thought made him feel like he was trying to run mucksand. He didn’t know why it felt so impossible; Obi-Wan was always there in the back of his mind, no matter how far away he was, his presence woven through the remnants of a bond that had never been fully cut.</p><p>It was Obi-Wan’s absence that brought everything into focus, even if only for a moment. Understanding came in a rush that made him more lightheaded than he’d been before—the battle on Kesta, the blinding pain behind his eyes, the gnawing emptiness within. A sick spiral of alarm unfolded in his gut, and he reached desperately for something he shouldn’t have actually had to reach for.</p><p>He couldn’t feel the <i>Force</i>. Within him, around him, where there should have been currents of light and presence and <i>life</i>, was a fathomless void where his own thoughts floundered, adrift.</p><p>He couldn’t remember ever feeling so alone, and it rose like bile in the back of his throat.</p><p>“Anakin.”</p><p>The voice was pure relief, as familiar to Anakin as the rise and fall of air within his own lungs. It was a voice he had heard every day for more than a decade, instructing and firm. It was a voice he heard in his dreams, sometimes, saying things he longed to hear but could never, ever be.</p><p>It was a voice that had once promised him he would be a Jedi, and Anakin gasped it in as if he hadn’t breathed in days, clinging to those three bare syllables. He couldn’t...he couldn’t <i>feel</i> Obi-Wan, but Anakin found that if he followed that voice, he could see him sitting there beside the bed.</p><p>“You took a blast to the head, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said quietly. He looked tired, which was really nothing new, but Anakin thought there was something tighter than usual to the set of his eyes. “The healers say everything will be fine, but you might not be able to concentrate enough to sense the Force until the pressure eases in your brain.”</p><p>It was the loss of an entire world to see Obi-Wan there and not be able to sense him, but every word seemed to offer its own brief salvation, a fleeting presence in his mind. Anakin seized at them desperately, trying to fill that awful emptiness. It helped, some, until Obi-Wan stopped speaking; the moment he did, the emptiness consumed everything but itself.</p><p>Obi-Wan spoke again, his voice breaking forward to span the absence with a thin web of calm, but the relief was as short-lived as his words. “I can feel you panicking.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Master,” he said miserably. It was almost a surprise to find that he, too, had a voice that could shape words, as thin and weak as they sounded. He tried to centre himself, the way Obi-Wan had taught him so long ago, but there was nothing to centre himself around; every time he tried, he fell through into nothingness. “I’ll…I’m trying to control it.”</p><p>Something close to pain shadowed Obi-Wan’s face. “That’s not what I meant, Anakin,” he said, voice gentle in a way Anakin hadn’t heard in a long time. Wars didn’t leave much room for softness. “What can I do to help you?”</p><p>He should protest, he told himself, but the thought came to him from a remove, and he couldn’t quite get it to make sense. It didn’t seem worth the effort of trying. “There’s...it’s too quiet.” That wasn’t it, not <i>quite</i>, but it was the closest he could think to get. As a young Padawan, overwhelmed by the crushing commotion of Coruscant, Anakin had longed for quiet, both within his mind and without. It had driven him near to tears of frustration on more than one memorable occasion. But this…</p><p>This was as bad in its own way, just another extreme that left no room for balance. “It’s too quiet,” he said again, his words faint.</p><p>“Then that is something I can fix,” Obi-Wan said simply. He leaned forward, just a little, his elbows on his knees and his hands folded before him, and it was a posture Anakin had seen from him a hundred times and more. Right now, Anakin was fully in favour of anything that brought Obi-Wan even an inch closer to his reach. It could never be close enough; Obi-Wan belonged inside his mind and his heart and his blood. “I don’t think you’ve heard this one before, but once, when we were on Rodia, Qui-Gon took it upon himself to fall into a swamp…”</p><p>Anakin had, in fact, heard this one before, and Obi-Wan knew it—but he thought maybe that was the point. The familiar story soothed almost as much as Obi-Wan’s voice did, a lifeline anchored in Obi-Wan’s own past. Anakin couldn’t even count how often he’d heard it.</p><p>He let the words crest within him, and filled himself with their sound.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>---</p>
</div>He wasn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep, but he woke again to the bewilderment of silence. For a long, sinking moment, he almost thought Obi-Wan was gone physically as well, but when his eyes struggled open against his own rising panic, it was to the calm seas of Obi-Wan’s gaze.<p>“Where was I?” Obi-Wan asked without hesitation, and Anakin didn’t know except that Obi-Wan was here—<i>here</i>--regardless of what his own dead Force sense told him. “Ah, yes. I believe I was recalling that time we were on Corellia. I will never forget the look on the Senator’s face when you offered to bet the results of a <i>month</i>’s worth of diplomacy on whether or not you could repair that freighter in under an hour’s time…”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>---</p>
</div>After that first time, it seemed that Obi-Wan never stopped talking, even when Anakin was asleep; every time Anakin woke, it was to the steady cadence of Obi-Wan’s voice. If there was a growing hint of gravel for the words to occasionally catch on, his tone remained even and composed.<p>Sometimes, Obi-Wan spoke of his own training with Qui-Gon Jinn, stories he had told again and again as Anakin learned to navigate his new home within the Temple. Anakin knew that Obi-Wan had found it difficult to speak of his old Master, those first few years, but Qui-Gon had been one of the only things they’d held in common, then. Other times, Obi-Wan recounted missions they’d been on together, just he and Anakin, side by side against the vast expanse of the galaxy. Still others, he recited folktales of old, stories held close by children and elders alike--”The Bounty Hunter and the Prince,” “The Secrets of Arat V,” “Kir Starkos and the Seven Moons of Mawr.”</p><p>Into the emptiness, Obi-Wan poured words and memories, and if they were the building blocks of his own soul, they were a part of Anakin, as well.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>---</p>
</div>When the Force returned, it came gradually. Anakin almost didn’t notice it, at first, secure as he was in Obi-Wan’s voice. But slowly, degree by slow degree, the emptiness blossomed back into life. Fancifully, still half mired in the void, Anakin imagined that Obi-Wan beguiled the Force back word by word by word.<p>Later, Obi-Wan would tell him it had taken just a little over twenty-four hours from the time he first woke to the moment he reached out to brush his fingers against Obi-Wan’s lips. After so long, it felt strange to have Obi-Wan’s voice fall silent under that touch, though his mouth, warm against Anakin’s hand, somehow made his breathing seem louder than it could possibly be.</p><p>Perhaps the loss showed on his face, because Obi-Wan reached up to take Anakin’s fingers in his own, curling their hands together in a firm grip before lowering them to the mattress so he could speak. Anakin found himself wishing he could feel the shape of Obi-Wan’s words as well as hear them.</p><p>“Would you like me to tell one more story?” Obi-Wan’s voice was hoarse to the point of pain; Anakin could feel it, now, in the Force, dull and strained. It sounded as weary as Obi-Wan looked, eyes shadowed with fatigue.</p><p>Anakin shook his head in response, though it wasn’t true, not quite; he always wanted to hear Obi-Wan’s voice, even when he complained that Obi-Wan was lecturing too much. It was one of the few constants of his life.</p><p>Obi-Wan simply nodded and moved to untangle his hand from Anakin’s, but Anakin turned his fingers to catch at his wrist. The motion felt clumsy, almost, as if Anakin’s arm was relearning how to function again. “I want to tell it, this time,” he managed, the sound reedy and dry.</p><p>Obi-Wan’s eyebrows angled together in confusion, but he made no further attempt to pull away. Anakin really had no idea what he was doing, but he was exhausted, and <i>relieved</i>, and Obi-Wan…</p><p>Obi-Wan was in pain, and had talked through the day and the night and then into the day again without pause, and he was everything that had held Anakin together—not just here, and now, today, but over the past decade and more.</p><p>Anakin didn’t know if Obi-Wan knew that, but he deserved to, if he didn’t.</p><p>“Once, there was a boy,” Anakin began, voice barely above a whisper, “who left behind his planet, which he hated, and his mother, who he loved. He was scared he’d have nothing, anymore. But that was impossible.” He could feel himself flushing hot, because he wasn’t good with words, not like Obi-Wan was. He must look a mess, colour blotching high on his cheeks and smirching down his neck, but Obi-Wan looked like he was hanging onto every word.</p><p>So Anakin kept going.</p><p>“But that was impossible.” He cleared his throat, rough in the otherwise silent room, and searched for the words. “Because there was someone who gave him everything.”</p><p>Anakin fell silent, not sure what else to say; it felt like there weren’t enough words in any language he knew, which was ridiculous in the face of all the thousands that Obi-Wan had spoken to ward Anakin from nothingness.</p><p>Or perhaps it wasn’t, given everything Obi-Wan was to him.</p><p>“I don’t know how the story ends,” Anakin finally said.</p><p>Obi-Wan just looked at him for a moment before answering, and it would surely be too much a fiction to believe that the slight hitch in his voice was not only from overuse. “How do you want it to end?”</p><p><i>In for a credit, in for a pound</i>, Anakin thought tiredly. All of his usual defenses felt like they were nonexistent; for the past twenty-four hours, Obi-Wan’s voice had been his only defense. “If it were a holodrama, it would probably end with a kiss.”</p><p>“I don’t care about holodramas, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said carefully. “I need to know how <i>you</i> want it to end.”</p><p>“Well, I wouldn’t want it to <i>end</i> with a kiss,” Anakin admitted.</p><p>Obi-Wan smiled, and for all the tiredness on his face, it looked like the rise of day and not the fall of night. "Then it doesn't have to."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading! I'm <a href="https://treescape.tumblr.com/">treescape</a> on tumblr if you want to say hi or drop a prompt!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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